The present invention relates to programmable logic resources and more particularly, the present invention relates to programmable logic resources having digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry in which saturation and rounding is supported.
A programmable logic resource is a general-purpose integrated circuit that is programmable to perform any of a wide range of logic tasks. Known examples of programmable logic resource technology include programmable logic devices (PLDs), complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), erasable programmable logic devices (EPLDs), electrically erasable programmable logic devices (EEPLDs), and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).
Manufacturers of programmable logic resources, such as Altera® Corporation of San Jose, Calif., have recently begun manufacturing programmable logic resources that, in addition to programmable logic circuitry, also include hardware DSP circuitry in the form of multiply-accumulate (MAC) blocks. The MAC blocks of programmable logic resources provide a way in which certain functionality of a user's design may be implemented using less space on the programmable logic resource, thus resulting in a faster execution time because of the nature of DSP circuitry relative to programmable logic circuitry. MAC blocks may be used in the processing of many different types of applications, including graphics applications, networking applications, communications applications, as well as many other types of applications.
MAC blocks are made of a number of multipliers, accumulators, and adders. The accumulators can perform add, subtract, or accumulate operations. Typically, there are four multipliers, two accumulators, and an adder in a MAC block. The MAC block can have a plurality of modes which may be selectable to provide different modes of operation.
MAC blocks are used to implement components of a user design that are appropriate for implementation in DSP that would otherwise require the use of a relatively large amount of programmable logic circuitry of the programmable logic resource. This allows the limited programmable logic circuitry of the programmable logic resource to be used for implementing more user design components than would otherwise be possible.
Typically, rounding and saturation circuitry for use with MAC blocks is implemented using the programmable logic circuitry of a programmable logic resource. This results in less programmable logic circuitry available for other components of a user design to be implemented within a particular programmable logic resource.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a programmable logic resource that makes more efficient use of its programmable logic circuitry and DSP circuitry.